A Bonus of Pancake Day

Every Monday night, Jill and the boys come over and a group of us have a somewhat healthy dinner. From my Pancake Day post a couple weeks ago, you can safely assume I almost never do the cooking, but I was feeling inspired after that post and decided we’d make savory crepes with the boys. Since I’d be cooking with 2 toddlers, I told myself drinking a bottle of wine while preparing dinner was definitely not an option. Don’t worry, I didn’t drink the bottle before they got there either!

Instead, I went into it fully prepared. I had my ingredients and tools ready to go. I knew who was doing what, and most importantly I had a backup plan in case anyone sneezed in the batter or did anything else little-boy gross — I had a few crepes in the fridge I made that morning for my post. I must confess I also had a sous chef prep all of the savory fillings for the crepes before Jill and the boys arrived. How else did I not drink a bottle of wine?

We hit our first snafu as soon as I asked the boys if they wanted to help cook dinner. Charlie said, “No way” immediately, but Will was excited to help. He chose the Bears apron from the pantry, we slid a chair over to the sink, scrubbed his hands, scooted him over to the island and got to work. Turns out a 31/2-year-old can actually crack an egg better than me. He also measures dry ingredients with less mess than I. Charlie was pretty hungry because as soon as he saw Will getting to snack on some of the diced ham he said he wanted to help after all. Charlie got his apron on and helped Jennifer grate the cheese.

Once Will and I got our batter stirred, and Jennifer and Charlie got the cheese grated, it was time for the boys to choose their fixings and clear the way so I could heat up the crepe griddle. Somewhere along the way, though, something magical happened, and Charlie started eating the steamed broccoli! That’s right the kid who runs from anything green on his plate started popping broccoli in his mouth. With Will that’s no surprise, but Charlie got so wrapped up in cooking that he ate broccoli.

In the end, we did not need the backup crepes, and we all enjoyed crepes stuffed with ham, cheese and broccoli. The plan had been to trick the boys into eating the broccoli by hiding it inside pancakes, but by including them in making dinner, we didn’t have to hide anything. They were happy participants!